Using light as an accessory to footwear is commonly employed and has been for some time. Shoes, sneakers or otherwise, have been given various arrangements of lighting systems to enhance visual appeal of the shoe, especially towards children. Often times the lights are external to the shoe, and serve as an accessory rather than an integral part of the shoe, simply lighting up the outside areas of the shoe. Generally, the lights do not internally illuminate the shoe, instead providing illumination external to the shoe.
While there are examples of footwear with internal lighting systems, current methods of lighting a shoe can still use improvement. Some solutions simply place a few lighting elements inside the shoe, perhaps in a transparent compartment. While certainly internal to the shoe, these lighting elements don't really provide internal illumination. Some products hollow out sections of shoes, where lights are placed. Sometimes these hollowed sections have components inside, which are illuminated by the lights. Other times the sections are empty, showing light along the internal walls. These examples provide some measure of internal illumination, but leave much to be desired. Generally, only small portions of the shoe are illuminated, and even then, the shoe itself is not illuminated so much as are various components and internal surfaces which are located in the illuminated section.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an internally illuminated component for a shoe. It is a further object of the present invention, to provide a method of obstructing the internal illumination, to create visual designs along the external surface, of the internally illuminated component.